Nuggets forward Will Barton controls the ball against Memphis Grizzlies guard Tony Allen during a game on March 30. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill)

It’s NBA awards season, and the Nuggets have a few players that will figure into to the mix in a couple of the categories. Here, we take a look at those categories going into Thursday night’s games, and examine the Nuggets’ player — or players — chances of winning.

Sixth Man Award
Nuggets Candidate: Will Barton

Barton’s breakout season will most certainly land him among the top vote getters for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. If the Nuggets were in the playoffs or even closer to playoff contention, there would be little debate: Barton would likely win it. He’s flat-out been the best sixth man in the league this season. But the Nuggets aren’t in the race any longer, and there are other notable performances around the league that will muddy the waters. Read more…

Nuggets guard D.J. Augustin drives against New Orleans forward James Ennis during a game on March 31. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

D.J. Augustin has always had a friend in Oklahoma City superstar Kevin Durant. Both are Longhorns. Augustin played alongside the long-limbed scorer in Austin back in 2006-07 and then added one more year at Texas after Durant bolted for the NBA following his wildly successful freshman season.

Durant is not surprised Augustin has found a place he likes in Denver since the trade deadline day deal that brought him to the Mile High City. The two talk about it frequently.

“I’m just happy he got his opportunity to play, that’s all he wanted,” said Durant prior to his team’s game at the Nuggets on Tuesday. “I talk to him all the time. He said he loves it (in Denver), the coach is trusting him. I remember coach (Michael) Malone calling him a security blanket or something like that, and in free agency a lot of people read things. You need that rap to get you the deal you want, I guess.” Read more…

The 7-foot-1 retired NBA legend made his in-ring debut for World Wrestling Entertainment on the company’s grandest stage, WrestleMania, on Sunday at AT&T Stadium. It was a day before he was official named to the 2016 Basketball Hall of Fame class.

“The Big Aristotle” was a surprise — and final — entrant in the 20-man Andre the Giant Battle Royale. Read more…

Head coach Jay Wright of the Villanova Wildcats, Ryan Arcidiacono, Kris Jenkins, and Daniel Ochefu speak with the media during a press conference after defeating North Carolina to win the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four National Championship game. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Few places in the country outside of Villanova, Pa., have a more significant connection to the Villanova Wildcats basketball program than the Nuggets.

They have the grandson, Tommy Massimino, of the legendary coach that won the school’s first men’s basketball national title, Rollie Massimino, on staff as a video intern. And they have the most prominent player from the 1985 team that won it, Ed Pinckney, as an assistant coach.

The duo scrambled after Nuggets practice to get to Houston for Villanova’s game against North Carolina in the national championship on Monday night. They got there. And, boy, was it worth it.

Kris Jenkins’ buzzer-beating 3-point shot gave a wild NCAA Tournament a fitting finish and gave Villanova its second basketball national title.

The education of young Nuggets point guard Emmanuel Mudiay is likely to continue in Las Vegas this July as part of the team’s summer league roster, coach Michael Malone said.

And if that’s the case, it’s fine by Mudiay.

“I don’t have a preference,” Mudiay said. “Regardless, I’m just going to work on my game.”

Mudiay has had an up-and-down rookie season, but did appear to improve as the season wore on. In March, Mudiay averaged 15.8 points, 4.8 assists, 3.9 rebounds and shot 39.1 percent from the field, including 38.9 percent from the 3-point line.

He scored 15 points in his only game in April thus far, a loss against Sacramento, leading into Tuesday’s game against Oklahoma City. Read more…

NBA superstars Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson were both named to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday. Nuggets coach Michael Malone has a connection to O’Neal — he coached the big man in Cleveland during the 2009-10 season, the penultimate season of Shaq’s career.

As for Iverson, Malone coached against the mighty-mite in the NBA and in college. Malone was an assistant at Providence the same time Iverson played for legend John Thompson at Georgetown.

“Shaq and Allen Iverson are two very, very impactful players,” Malone said. “Well-deserved honor for those guys.”

He was asked what it was like to be around the big ball of fun named Shaq on a daily basis. Read more…

Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari drives against Sacramento forward Quincy Acy during a game against the Kings on Feb. 19. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The fact that former Nuggets coach George Karl was in town on Saturday night at the Pepsi Center was pure coincidence.

That morning, Danilo Gallinari, one of Karl’s old players, expressed a return to an old frame of mind, when playoffs were a given and championships were the vision. This has been a frustrating season for Gallinari, the Nuggets’ veteran leader who is out for the season with a badly injured right ankle.

He gave some of his most candid comments about his view of the state of the team.

“In the beginning of the season I wanted to go to the playoffs,” Gallinari said. “I thought we had the chance to do it, that we had the team to do it. So, mission not accomplished. That’s the negative part. Honestly, maybe there are some positives for sure, but for me after all I’ve been through in Denver, going to the playoffs every year and fighting for something every year, to not be able to do that this season was very frustrating for me.” Read more…

Danilo Gallinari backs down Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan in a game earlier this season. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Though he continues to make good progress on a badly injured right ankle, Danilo Gallinari said he will not play another game for the Nuggets this season.

“No,” he said after the team’s shootaround on Saturday morning.

So, he’s done?

“Yes,” he said.

He’s recovering from two torn lateral ligaments in the ankle — the anterior talofibular and calcaneofibular — and has a sprained deltoid ligament as well. Gallinari will end this season missing the final 23 games of it. Read more…

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic goes up to block L.A. Clippers guard Austin Rivers’shot in a game on March 27. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic will not play on Wednesday night against Memphis, the second straight game he’s missed due to illness, but overall he’s having exactly the kind of finish he desperately needed to have in what has been a rollercoaster season.

In his last seven games, Nurkic has averaged 12.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.0 steals per game. So, yes, he’s filling up the stat sheet. Perhaps most importantly is Nurkic’s shooting percentage of 55.6, which is much more in line with what post players should be shooting. Read more…

New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony (7) drives to the basket past New Orleans Pelicans forward Dante Cunningham (44) in the second half of an NBA basketball game in New Orleans, Monday, March 28, 2016. The Pelicans won 99-91. (Gerald Herbert, The Associated Press)

New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony is one of the NBA’s most popular players. One fan decided to give him an embrace Tuesday — at an interesting time.

Late in the fourth quarter, a young boy ran past security onto the court and gave Melo a hug.

Unprovoked, Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle let loose on the admiration he’s had for the job new Nuggets coach Michael Malone has done in his first season in Denver. He made these comments prior to the game on Monday night at the Pepsi Center.

“This is a very good young team, and one of the real underrated coaching jobs in our league is happening here with Mike Malone,” Carlisle said. “He’s taken a bunch of guys that were viewed as role players and gotten these guys into a system where they are having some success. They are extremely difficult to play. They’re stats are very consistent. And going forward, they are in a very strong position here.”

The Nuggets entered the game with 31 wins, eclipsing last season’s total.

Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com

LOS ANGELES — Prior to Friday night’s game at the Staples Center, the Lakers radio feed was being piped into the visitor’s locker room, which, that night, was the Nuggets locker room. During the broadcast they explained away the Nuggets’ win over Philadelphia on Wednesday as blah between two teams “going nowhere.”

That caught the ears of Nuggets coach Michael Malone, perked them up, and became a phrase that further motivated the already always-motivated Malone to want to get the win over the Lakers even more.

“Going nowhere?” Malone said. “No, we’re improving.”

Then his team, now 4 1/2 games out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference, went out and trounced the 15-win Lakers, 116-105. Read more…

Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) has the ball knocked out of his hands by Atlanta Hawks forward Kent Bazemore (24) in the first half of an NBA basketball game Saturday, March 19, 2016, in Atlanta. (John Bazemore, The Associated Press)

In a year in which Golden State’s Stephen Curry obliterated the NBA’s single-season 3-pointers made record, another Western Conference star is chasing an amazing mark that’s not quite as awesome.

Houston Rockets guard James Harden has a chance to break the league’s all-time single-season turnovers record. At 332 with 10 games remaining, Harden needs just 34 to tie Artis Gilmore’s 39-year-old mark, according to basketball-reference.com. He is on pace for 372.

The four-time all-star became the first player in a decade to reach at least 321 turnovers last season, the first since Miami’s Dwyane Wade (321) and Philadelphia’s Allen Iverson (344) in 2004-05. Iverson was the first to reach at least 340 since Clippers guard Ron Harper in the 1986-87 season.

In second place this year, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook has 303 through 71 games. He’s on pace for 350 — that’s tied with Charles Barkley’s 1985-86 season in Philadelphia. In third, Washington’s John Wall (291) is trending toward 336 — top-20 all-time.

Houston is fourth in the NBA in turnovers (1,159) this season. Oklahoma City is fifth (1,120) and Washington is 15th (1,019). The league average is 1,026.

The Nuggets’ NBA mark is 346 by George McGinnis in 1978-98. Denver’s franchise mark is 360 by Ralph Simpson in the 1975-76 ABA season. Emmanuel Mudiay (187) leads the Nuggets this season, but the turnovers are more spread out. Denver is 11th in the league in most turnovers at 1,062.

It’s been some time since three players recorded at least 326 turnovers (currently 20th on the list) in the same year. The 1977-78 season saw four player (Gilmore, Kevin Porter, Ricky Sobers and Bob McAdoo) and the 1985-86 years had three (McGinnis, Porter and Moses Malone).

Denver Nuggets guard Emmanuel Mudiay, third from left, celebrate his game-winning basket with, from left, forward Darrell Arthur, guard Gary Harris and team mascot Rocky the mountain lion, Wednesday, March 23, 2016, in Denver. The Nuggets won 104-103 on Mudiay’s three-point shot as time ran out in the half. (David Zalubowski, AP)

Here’s the situation: Nuggets down by two to the 76ers, no timeouts left, 3.1 seconds on the clock and the Nuggets have to go the length of the court.

The ball was inbounded to Emmanuel Mudiay. He lost the handle around half court but somehow managed to throw up a prayer at the buzzer.

The duo of young bigs, Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic, is on the shortlist of combinations hardcore Nuggets observers want to see most on the court together.

Yet, if there is a combination Nuggets coach Michael Malone isn’t breaking his back to re-jigger the lineup to see, it’s the combination of Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic on the court together. Until Monday night, the two had seen all of four minutes of shared court time this season.

But a Bigfoot sighting happened in the Nuggets’ loss to the Cavaliers on Monday. Nurkic and Jokic played. On the court. Together. It lasted seven minutes, and, well, it had its good and bad aspects. Read more…

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic battles for the ball with Celtics guard Evan Turner in a game earlier this season. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic knows the time for voicing concern and frustration has passed. At least for the time being. Right now, he know he’s got to take advantage of the opportunities he’s given.

“I’m feeling good,” Nurkic said. “I just want to finish the last 13, 14 games of the season and we’ll see what happens. Just be a pro, and that’s it.”

In the last two games, Nurkic has been back on the court. And he’s played well with averages of 10 points, five rebounds, one block and one steal in those games while shooting 40 percent from the field. Of most importance to coach Michael Malone is the team has been in positive territory when the second-year center has been on the court. Never is that better illustrated than in the team’s defensive rating in the 52 minutes he’s been off the court in those games (121.6) as opposed to the 44 minutes he’s been on the court (92.7) — nearly a 30-point difference per 100 possessions.

And for a Nuggets team that is in continual search of a consistent defense-first identity, those numbers are hard to ignore. Read more…

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.